Did you know that it's against the law for couples to check into a London hotel under assumed names for the purpose of a romantic tryst? Or that by order of Edward II, all whales washed up on the shore belong to the monarch? Or that under a Tudor law Welshmen are not allowed to enter the city of Chester after dark? Nigel Cawthorne unearths an extraordinary collection of the most bizarre and arcane laws that have been enacted over the centuries—some of which, incredibly, remain prosecutable (it is still illegal, for example, to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armor).